Meat Reheat Part 1 – Lower and Slower Lamb Shanks

One of the excellent things about writing this blog is that I can do what I like, unbound by convention. One standard would state that posting the same stuff twice is a no-no. To hell with that. If anyone can extract a second serving from one dish, I’m your man. One of my earliest posts was lamb shanks under the banner of How slow can you go? I now realise that I can go slower and lower, a lot slower and plenty lower. Hence, part one in my Meat Reheat series.

Lamb ShanksThere’s enough in one per person but ‘one for the pot’ never goes to waste.

You are also going to need to get up early. This is a six-hour roasting extravaganza.

Here’s what you need to do

Turn the oven on to 110 degrees C. Heat a frying pan (skillet) on the hob. Dust the shanks in the seasoned flour and brown them on as many sides as their shape will allow.

Impossible to brown them on every size unless you use a blowtorch or deep fry them. Don’t ask me to do either.

Sit them on the onion and rosemary in a roasting dish. Add plenty of garlic. You can decide on quantity. I am fed up listening to people telling me I use too much garlic. I don’t. When one slow roasts, the garlic transforms into a beautiful sweet paste inside the cloves.

This is the first of a few gratuitous meat shot. Note the garlic, onions and rosemary. The support actors in the gravy show.

Season the shanks and add three-quarters of a bottle of the wine. If it is not too early in the day for you, pour a glass and enjoy it. Cover the shanks with foil and put them in the oven.

This is the second gratuitous shot. Note the wine. The Cary Grant or Wayne Sleep in the gravy show.

Go somewhere else and do something worthwhile for a couple of hours. (I cycled down to Wicklow and back.) Return and turn the shanks. Go away again. Repeat this process (Not the cycle unless you are very fit, I was exhausted.).

4 hours in and time to pour off most of the cooking juices. I was pretty hungry at this stage of things.

Don’t forget to prepare your other ingredients. You have plenty of time to do them. No excuses please.

A visual interlude for the vegetarians. The earthy taste of parsnips works really well. I roasted mine for half an hour with a little oil and black pepper.

After five and a half hours, take the shanks out. Pour off most of the cooking liquid into a separator.

The gravy needs to be reduced in a saucepan by about two-thirds. Then add a bit of butter to glaze the gravy. It ends up a purple-black colour and incredibly rich.

When you have removed the fat, add this to a pot and reduce it, adding a knob of butter to give it a nice glaze. This will be one of the best gravies you will ever taste. Return the shanks to the oven, uncovered, and turn the heat up to 180 C.

Diner pressure was resisted. I took the full 6 hours. Worth the wait.

Turn the shanks a couple of times during this part of the process. They should be sticky and will smell delicious. Be careful to prevent them drying out. Add back a bit of the gravy if you really need to.

That gravy was the excellent. Worth the time stirring it on the hob. Do you like my styling with the sprig of rosemary?

Get the timing of the other ingredients right and serve the shanks with mashed potatoes, wine gravy and seasonal vegetables.

“Et viola” as they say in musical circles. Note the roasted garlic cloves hiding at the back of the plate. Perfect squashed and mixed with the mash.

The first of my reheats was a big success. The flavours worked wonderfully well. It was worth going the entire six hours. I make that pretty low and pretty slow.

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You can do just what you like its your blog and I spend many hours wandering through my old posts – I call it food porn. I remember this one but i dont remember that bizarre jug – If i didn’t know better I’d say it was taking the piss. Anyway I’m at work trying to figure out why my numbers don’t stack up (there’s an obvious answer and no I don’t need it) so I’m off…

I almost bought lamb shanks yesterday…now I wish I had. Lower and slower definitely seems the way to go. I love how a whole head of garlic turns into a lovely paste for mixing with the meat, veg or just smeared on a piece of bread with the meal.

This looks great for a dinner party! I have a tiny crockpot (1.5 quart) that will hold one lamb shank if I have the butcher cut in in 2. Perfect since I live alone. I start in in the morning and when I arrive home from work I’m surprised by the wonderful smell that greets me. At that point I’ve usually forgotten that I started it cooking…

You are absolutely right to reheat, especially if it’s such a great dish! The finished plate and the gravy look great. I bet it was delicious! Braising in the oven is great as it doesn’t require as much attention. Lamb shanks are cheap and packed with flavor. I do them even lower and slower, sous-vide of course. 48 hours at 62C if memory serves me right. I’ll have to do a post.

I probably won’t have time to do the lamb shank for the next few weeks, as I already have some other projects coming up. Including having my boss + his boss + the remaining two colleagues from our management team + everyone’s wives/husbands coming over for an Italian dinner at my house 🙂

Super gorgeous supper! Do cook more lamb, because you do a good job with it every time and it’s always a treat for us. I love that little red gravy dish. Your pictures are looking better and better every day!

I am delighted that you stopped by my website so that I could come and check out all of your wonderful recipes. I love how simple this recipe is with really good ingredients and lamb shanks that are fall off the bone tender. Looking forward to keeping in touch. Take Care, BAM

Thanks BAM, I look forward to hearing more about HK life through your blog. My youngest brother spent a few years there (a long time ago) and there seems to be a lot of political intrigue there too at present. I look forward to your tasty posts.

Hi, Conor. As you can see I fell behind on my blogging due to the Thanksgiving holiday. 😮 Great post, as usual, and you hit probably my most favorite food in the world with braised lamb shanks. Love the prep and the low and slow. I also bet that sauce was the star of the show. I can just taste it. Mmmmm…I have 2 lamb shanks in the freezer that I recently purchased and was thinking sous vide but not after reading your post. Now, I will have to make them this week.

Recipe looks great. Will certainly try. But am writing to ask some advice: Recently did some shanks. My recipe called for wrapping them in foil with carrots and leek and baking them at 200C for 2/half hours ( lots less that yours, although the garlic, onion, rosemary and lots of wine similar). The first one was very soft and very good. Had an appointment so I put the remainder in the fridge for the next day. Next day I put them back in the oven to reheat. After about half and hour or so I took them out and served them. But this time they were not particularly good. The fat was quite dominant and the meat seemed to get hard and glazed and tasteless…

Hi Hans-Peter, Thanks for visiting. I suspect that in the higher temperature / lower time cooking the meat and connective tissues in the shanks may not have broken down completely. Also, the higher cooking temperature may have extracted a lot of moisture from the meat. When the shanks are cooked ‘low and slow’, it is possible to eat the meat with a spoon. It also tastes pretty good the following day, without any of the issues you faced. Could I suggest you give it a try? I doubt you will ever cook them quickly again. Best regards, Conor

gerry rye|18th September 2015

Some great posts and thanks never been on this site before soooooo could you help me. I am having a dinner party for 8 and this recipe sounds great but I would like to cook it the day before, and just reheat would you keep the gravy separate?

Hi Gerry, No. Keep it all in the one dish. Cover it with tinfoil to keep the moisture in. Do any gravy separation as near to serving as possible. Thanks for visiting and for the kind words. Best, Conor